Profile

Anton Ressel is an experienced business development consultant, mentor and SME specialist. He is the Senior consultant at ED and CSI specialist agency Fetola (www.fetola.co.za ), a winning mentor on the SAB Kickstart Entrepreneur Competition, and a published author across multiple publications. His passion is helping small businesses become big ones. Follow @antonres on Twitter.

Anton Ressel is an experienced business development consultant with a special focus on community-based businesses, emerging entrepreneurs, small-scale manufacture and the creative industries.

As one of the original founders of celebrated social enterprise Streetwires, Anton guided the growth of the company from a team of 4 people into a thriving organization employing over 120 formerly unemployed men and women.

Anton left Streetwires in 2006 to open a consultancy that assists small businesses and community-based enterprises to be more sustainable. He has also been an Associate Consultant at ED and CSI specialist agency Fetola since 2007, and is a mentor on the SAB Kickstart Competition.

In this age of mass consumption, fast food, FMCG, twitterati, fly-by-nights, whirlwind trends and a general throwaway culture, there is still one secret weapon that savvy and sustainable businesses use to stay ahead of the game...

The average small business does not have millions in the budget to channel into high-level brand-building exercises. In fact, for most of us, even finding the 15% of turnover benchmark recommended for marketing and branding efforts by generations of branding and advertising experts, is a real stretch.

By 2050, it is estimated that the earth's human population will be 9.07 billion. 62% of the people will live in Africa, Southern Asia and Eastern Asia - numerically this is the same as if all the world's current population lived in just these three regions. In addition, another 3 billion will be spread across the rest of the world.

As a business consultant with a special focus on the craft and small scale manufacturing sectors, I have come to recognise a number of shared traits amongst entrepreneurs and business owners engaged in the design and manufacture of products.

Many people believe that the word 'brand' relates simply to the visual identity of a particular company, product or organisation - in other words the organisation's name, logo and general look and feel.

Do you market yourself as a 'green' business? OK, so you may use recycled materials in your products, limit electricity usage, even have different dustbins for glass, plastic and other, but does that entitle you to use words such as 'sustainable manufacturer' or 'environmentally-friendly' in your marketing spiel?

By 2050, it is estimated that the earth's human population will be 9.07 billion. 62% of the people will live in Africa, Southern Asia and Eastern Asia - numerically this is the same as if all the world's current population lived in just these three regions. In addition, another 3 billion will be spread across the rest of the world.

It is well documented that famous entrepreneur Richard Branson had a string of unsuccessful ventures and outright failures on his journey to building the empire that is Virgin today. What makes his story so compelling is that he was able to recognise when to push on with a business concept or idea, and when to put it aside and start something else.